Seeking My Brothers: Blessing Through Prayer and Faith

1“I am seeking my brothers.” The words anochi mevakesh, “I am seeking,” seem unnecessary. It would have been enough for the verse to say, “And the man asked him, saying, ‘What do you seek?’ And he said, ‘My brothers.’”¹ Why does Yosef add “I am seeking”?

2Let us also first cite what Chazal said about the Chanukah lamp: “Its mitzvah is from sunset until the foot ceases from the marketplace,” that is, until the last passersby have left the street.² This raises a question: everywhere else Chazal set a time limit in hours. The evening Krias Shema, the recital of the Shema, may be said until midnight,³ and the morning Krias Shema until three hours into the day.⁴ Why, then, did they set the limit for lighting the Chanukah lamp as “until the foot ceases from the marketplace”?

3Let us also cite a teaching of Chazal. In the blessing over the Chanukah lamp we say, “Who has sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us,” and the Gemara asks, “Where did He command us?”⁵ Rav Avya said: from “You shall not turn aside.”⁶ Rav Nechemyah said: from “Ask your father …”⁷ What are they disagreeing about? What difference does it make which verse we learn it from? And what does Rav Nechemyah add by learning it from “Ask your father,” beyond what we learn from “You shall not turn aside”?

4The words of my holy father and teacher, zt"l, will open our discussion and shed light on it.⁸ He explained Chazal's teaching that the Greeks said to Israel, “Write for yourselves on the horn of the ox that you have no portion in the God of Israel.”⁹ Why did they want this written on the horn of an ox, of all places? My holy father explained that the Greeks wanted to wipe out faith in Hashem and in His Moshiach from the hearts of Israel. That is why they said, “Write on the horn of the ox.” For Chazal said on the verse “I have ox and donkey”: “‘Ox’: this is Moshiach ben Yosef, as it says, ‘His firstborn ox, majesty is his.’ ‘Donkey’: this is King Moshiach, as it says, ‘humble, and riding on a donkey.’”¹⁰ This is what the Greeks wanted: to turn Israel away, Heaven forbid, from faith in the coming of Moshiach, to whom the “ox” alludes. The Chashmona'im, the Hasmoneans, stood against them and planted faith in the hearts of Israel. That is why the Chanukah lamp has the power to root faith in our hearts, the faith that Moshiach will come and redeem us speedily. Those are his holy words.

5aWe can explain all this through what the holy sefer Tiferes Shlomo writes on the verse “Go now, see to the welfare of your brothers and the welfare of the flock.”¹¹ There are two kinds of tzaddikim. One tzaddik's whole aim is to serve the Creator, and nothing else. Even what he gives others is only spiritual, never material, because he is zealous for Hashem, God of Hosts, and his mind is on the Creator's greatness alone.¹² Another tzaddik, besides bringing Israel a flow of spiritual blessing, also sets his heart on Israel's material welfare. Yosef HaTzaddik's holy way was the first: he saw to Israel's welfare, and worked for it, only in spiritual things.

5bThis is the meaning of the verse “And Yosef brought evil report of them to their father.”¹³ As soon as he heard of anything that, in his judgment, was not as it should be, he went at once to set it right and raise it up to their Father in Heaven. But he did not set his heart on the material welfare of the tribes of God. Yaakov Avinu, however, held that one should take the second way and seek Israel's material welfare too. With this the Tiferes Shlomo explains what Yaakov Avinu said to Yosef: “Go now, see to the welfare of your brothers.” Yaakov was directing Yosef to take the second way. He should seek his brothers' welfare and good in material things as well, and bring them a flow of blessing, not only rebuke them and influence them spiritually, as had been his way until then. That is the gist of his holy words.

6To explain this further, we can draw on what my holy great-grandfather of Biala, zt"l, wrote on the verse “The Kohen shall approach and speak to the people.”¹⁴ The word for speaking, dibbur, is a harsh expression and hints at rebuke.¹⁵ Venigash, “shall approach,” hints at prayer, as Chazal said: “‘Approaching’ means nothing other than prayer.”¹⁶ As is well known, the Kohen stands for the tzaddik of the generation. So the verse hints: when the tzaddik “approaches,” praying for his generation and bringing them a flow of blessing in material things, he will also be able to fulfill the rest of the verse. He can “speak to the people” in its harsh sense, rebuking them and teaching them the way of Hashem. Those are his holy words.

7In light of this, we can understand Yosef's words “I am seeking my brothers.” He meant that he had accepted his father Yaakov's way and agreed with it. “Here I am,” he was saying, “going to seek the welfare of my brothers and their material good.” This is “es achai anochi mevakesh,” “I am seeking my brothers.” The word mevakesh, “seeking,” also means asking in prayer. Yosef was saying: when I stand in prayer, I pray that I may bring my brothers their good, both spiritual and material, as hinted in the words achai, “my brothers,” and anochi, “I.” Anochi hints at spiritual things, since the Ten Commandments begin with Anochi, “I am Hashem your God,”¹⁷ and the whole Torah, we know, is contained in the Ten Commandments.¹⁸ And when I seek to influence them to go forward and rise in the levels of the Torah, I seek to bring them es achai, “my brothers,” as well: brotherhood, a flow of blessing and peace, material plenty.

8This explains the dispute of the Amoraim, the sages of the Gemara, that we cited about “Where did He command us?” Rav Avya said: from “You shall not turn aside.” That verse implies spiritual things alone. In Rav Avya's view, when Chazal instituted the mitzvah of the Chanukah lamp for Israel, they meant to guide the people to live by Torah and the service of Hashem alone, to cleave to them and never turn aside from them. But Rav Nechemyah says that we learn it from “Ask your father.” He adds that Chazal also meant to bring down a flow of blessing and peace in material things, the way a father gives his son what he asks for and is generous with him in material things too. Through this mitzvah Chazal brought it about that our Father in Heaven bestows great abundance on us, “as a father has compassion on his children.”¹⁹ We find that the Chashmona'im went this way too, bringing Israel salvation both in body and in spirit. As is well known, they were zealous for Hashem, in the spirit of “Who is like You among the mighty, Hashem?” The first letters of these words, Mi chamocha ba'eilim Hashem, spell Maccabi.²⁰ Through this zeal they raised up the spiritual life of Israel against the kingdom of Greece, which had made Israel neglect Torah and mitzvos. Beyond that, the needs of their people touched their hearts, and they rose up to take vengeance on the enemies who were oppressing Israel. That was saving the body, in the material realm.

9[The flow of blessing comes through the power of faith in Hashem. The verse “Ask your father” hints at this: we must place our trust in our Father in Heaven and ask of Him alone, with complete faith, and He will have compassion on us as a father has compassion on his children. This is the power of the mitzvah of Chanukah: to plant faith in Hashem in our hearts, as we saw in my holy father's teaching on the horn of the ox. That is why the mitzvah of Chanukah is learned from “Ask your father”: through faith in Hashem, our Father in Heaven will fill all our needs.]

10This answers our question: why did Chazal set the limit for the mitzvah of Chanukah as “until the foot ceases from the marketplace”? “The foot in the marketplace” hints at feet running after a livelihood. Through the power of the Chanukah lamp, which instills faith in Hashem, the Holy One, blessed be He, will fill our needs in great abundance, as a father has compassion on his children, in the spirit of the verse “Ask your father” that we have seen. This is “until the foot ceases from the marketplace”: through the mitzvah of Chanukah so much abundance will flow to us that we will not need to run after a livelihood.

11May the Holy One, blessed be He, bestow great abundance on us until the coming of the Redeemer. Amen, may it be His will.